MHA's Blog: Chiming In

This week, I went back in time to take a look at a story that comes up in discussions of mental health in literature, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I’ve read the story a bunch of times in various settings, particularly in a class on American Literature, and I always see something different in it. This time, the need for autonomy came to the front.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written in 1890 in response to Gilman’s experience with postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter. The story is about a woman who is locked in a room by her husband (who is also her doctor) following the birth of their child. She is driven to distraction by the ugly yellow wallpaper in the room, which eventually causes her to have a nervous breakdown.

Gilman gets a lot across in the short tale. She presents an unhappy woman who wants help dealing with her mental health issues, but is totally ignored. She is put on bed rest, which was called the “rest cure” to help deal with her post-partum depression, despite her insistence that she wants to interact with people. She is told she can’t write, paint or draw, and has to hide doing these from her sister-in-law, who is acting as her nurse. Her own wishes, which she clearly spells out numerous times, are ignored. Finally, she takes an action of her own by dealing with the yellow wallpaper.

I’m guessing you recognized a common pattern in the story. People with mental health conditions are still ignored. Their wishes about their treatment, their day-to-day lives and just about everything else are still completely ignored. Like the narrator of the story, no matter how well someone articulates their wishes, someone overrules them. The struggle for autonomy is a long, frustrating one for a lot of people diagnosed with mental health issues. Gilman’s narrator says at the beginning of the story “If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency--what is one to do?” That complaint still comes up all the time.

Before I came to Mental Health America, I never seriously thought about what autonomy meant. I have never experienced a situation where my freedom was severely limited, and it took seeing what it was actually like to open my eyes. We believe that everyone has the right to do what makes them happy and healthy, even if others don’t agree with it. That’s why we advocate for recovery, that every person with a mental health condition can lead productive lives based on their input and choices. It’s why we encourage people with mental health conditions to stand up for themselves and educate legislators, decision-makers and the general public about what having a mental health condition means, why we encourage them to write Psychiatric Advanced Directives, to ensure their wishes are heard even when they can’t say them. It’s also why we are against involuntary commitment and forced medication. Looking back at the way mental health conditions are treated in pop culture, it’s obvious that this struggle to be heard is an old one.

Gilman’s story has a lot to say about mental health, autonomy, equality in marriage and the importance of making decisions for oneself. I recommend reading it as soon as possible. It’s available on Project Gutenberg, at most libraries and off of Barnes and Nobles and Amazon.

Next week, we’ll take a look at comedian Maria Bamford’s “Special Special Special” and look at the intersection of mental health and comedy.

Have you read “The Yellow Wallpaper”? What did you think ?